Would you like to help us test recipes for the Mumsnet Cookbook?

[CatherineHMumsnet]

Shhh .. don't tell everyone but we're working on a top secret new project in the form of The Mumsnet Cookbook and we need your help.

We'd like to get together a Mumsnet Cookbook cookery group to stop us from piling on the pounds help us test these shortlisted recipes.

Each volunteer will be allocated a recipe which they'll then cook for their family and give us some feedback on how easy, hard, good, bad, expensive etc they are and whether they'd make it again. All the recipes chosen were submitted over the years by Mumsnetters, so there shouldn't be any outlandish or particularly difficult to source ingredients - and they should all be pretty easy to make (we hope!).

As a thank-you, we'll be putting everyone who helps out into a prize draw to win a Bloomsbury cookbook.

And if that's not enough of an incentive, everyone who helps will have their *Mumsnetter nickname featured in the cookbook's acknowledgements.

Can I just add... pasta crisps sound revolting!

They weren't revolting. They were just really really unpleasant and fairly inedible.

Most of all, they begged the question "Why?"

I was a bit :( as I was sooooo looking forward to my moment of glory as Official Mumsnet Recipe Tester

Mine was easy but was Chicken and rice one-pot. Personally I like mine with More salt and more spice.

Most of all, they begged the question "Why?"

That was exactly what I thought, I read it and thought why in the word would you want to eat a lasagne sheet as a crisp?

Really sorry if the MN'er who posted the recipe reads this but I was expecting asparagus risotto or something like that And ended up with the equivalent to cheesy chips.

I was hoping somebody might agree with me about hiding preparation steps in the ingredient list [sigh]

Or even disagree with me! Then we can have a discussion, and mnhq might notice, and edit the recipes!,,,

Totally agree Bump, sorry I was so engrossed in my lasagne sheet WHY theory that I missed your excellent post.

When the ingredients were listed did it say - onion, thinly sliced/chopped
Carrot, diced/grated?

Yes, exactly!

Very irritating, so easy to overlook those vital steps of preparation, and start off cooking without having everything ready.

The whole point of a recipe is to guide you through the correct steps to make a new dish. Not to undermine our confidence in cooking new things by making us feel stupid because of course the onions need to be chopped up before you start searing th meat. Grgr

I quite understand your absorption in the lasagne crisps question. I am trying hard to get the idea of deep fried dry lasagne out of my mind.

Erm, if it says washed and cubed spuds in the ingredients list, is that not a hint that you need to have them washed and cubed to start with?

And yes to consensus on lasagne crisps. I see no reason to make them ever .

Mind you, 5 potatoes is not that helpful either. How big are they? you could have 2 people prepare those five potatoes and end up with a very different amount of spuds in each dish.

Have done my feedback, sorry for delay.

My recipe was a bit hideous really. It was both incredibly quick and simple yet also quite protracted and irritating!

has no one done my frozen chocolate mousse thing? its ossom

all naff recipes on here have mixed herbs in them - ie toe nails

Maureen - do you mean the chocolate bombe?

Well that's a first. Managed to delete my own message! Meant to say - we have another recipe that needs testing if anyone's interested it's Lamb Shanks here

I did the pear and ginger pud and the kids loved it but the method needs a bit of editing. Ds has already asked when we can make it again.

The idea of lasagne crisps has me a bit

By the way - wanted to do a general massive thank-you to everyone who has completed the feedback form so far (and sent such great photos). Really appreciate it!

no the frozem chocolate mousse slice.

I tried to add the following comment to my questionnaire as I forgot to fill it in then. But I just got a new blank questionnaire - didn't want to stick it in that and then discover that I'd wiped out everything else I'd put in.

I've put it in my email to you too Catherine but will stick it here, thinking that this is a more central place to put it.

anyhow - it's for the tartiflette...

"Forgot to add to form that on scooping it out onto the plate, the ?sauce? within it didn?t look very appealing ? it was the wine it cooked in mixed with the butter from the dish, the melted cheese and hot crème fraiche? The crème fraiche (and maybe cheese too) kind of looked somewhat curdled while the other juice looked dishwater colour and greasy thanks to the butter, creme fraiche and cheese. Didn?t taste too bad but wasn?t easy to serve out nicely, especially if you had guests. "

all the recipes are crap as IIRC they were a condition of a competition entry, so poeple just wrote any old shit.
ahem

Not completely true Maureen,
Ive put a few up there myself, and have tried out a few. Some are a bit basic in a "why would you need a recipe for that" but there are some lovely slow cooker and soup ones.

Did you put mixed herbs in?

I'd be up for it, but only for vegetarian or fish recipes :)

MaureenCognito - as you might imagine (or at least hope) we didn't set out to choose 'any old shit' for people to try.

We did try and pick a range of recipes and so far more than 60% have had good feedback, which we're pretty happy with!